


Break Fast

by lowbudgetcyborg



Category: The Hobbit (2012)
Genre: F/M, Friends to Lovers, Pre-Quest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-14
Updated: 2013-04-14
Packaged: 2017-12-08 12:59:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/761567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lowbudgetcyborg/pseuds/lowbudgetcyborg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first (official) step in a courtship. </p><p>Or, two dwarves stumbling toward the belief that they can get what they really want.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Break Fast

**Author's Note:**

> I have Feelings about the movie'verse's failure to do more with Bombur. Fanfic to the rescue! 
> 
> I don't have a beta reader, so concrit is very welcome.

Bombur had just finished dressing when he heard a knock on the front door of his family's apartment. He smiled to himself. Halla had taken to appearing at his door on his days off right before his breakfast time (it would be early tea for her, due to his night shift schedule) a few months ago. For the past six weeks his mother had gone visiting with her friends at the same time, to let him and Halla have privacy while Bofur and Bifur were at the toyshop. For Bera, who expressed herself with actions as much as with words, that was as good as telling him outright that she thought he and Halla should be more than friends. Bombur didn't like to question his mother, but he thought she was making a big assumption. There was a difference between enjoying someone’s company and wanting to build a whole life with them, and just because he thought he might feel that way about Halla certainly didn't mean she felt that way about him. 

He opened the door to Halla's small, but very genuine, smile and matched it with one of his own. He felt a prickle of worry, however, as he waved her and Tangle, her pup, into the apartment. She seemed hesitant, and he wondered if something was wrong. He put the tea kettle on the stove as she took a fresh loaf of bread and a small basket of dried blackberries out of her satchel. “I thought these would go well with that sharp cheese, if you still have any. And if not, they'll be lovely on their own.”

“I do still have some. Thank you.” They spoke little more as Bombur built up the fire and spooned tea leaves into the teapot. Bombur didn't talk much unless he had something particular to say, and Halla was comfortable with silence. That had actually been how Bifur had introduced her to him: “This is Halla. You will like her, she is almost as quiet as you are.” 

Halla watched as Bombur got tea started and began cutting up bread and cheese. She enjoyed the easy confidence that came to his movements when he had kitchen tools in his hands, and the way the afternoon light shone on his orange hair and beard. She imagined, not for the first time, reaching out and burying her fingers in his sideburns. It would be a deeply intimate gesture, and not one she wanted to make without talking about what it would mean between them. 

She had stopped at the bakery where Bera worked and hung about until the older women had left so she could ask her what she knew of Bombur's plans for the future. Berra sighed. “I don't know what he truly wants, but I do know that even though you've been coming around more regular than paydays he still thinks his brother is the only one with a chance to get a mate who will give me grandchildren. You should be asking him what he wants.” 

Halla had looked down and adjusted Tangle's leash where it was tied to her belt. Bera's advice was comfortingly, and maddeningly, like her own mother's. She looked up and met Bera's eyes. “You're right. If I'm to be disappointed it won't hurt less for putting it off.”

“And if you like his answer, then why deprive yourself any longer?” Bera concluded with a saucy grin, before taking her leave.

Now she let a dried blackberry soften on her tongue while she considered what, exactly, she wanted to ask. When she was a younger dwarf Halla had gotten carried away with her dreams of the future and foolishly assumed that the dwarf she was involved with had valued her as much as she valued herself, and she certainly didn't want that kind of pain and embarrassment again. But Bombur didn't have his brother's unfortunate tendency to let his tongue run away with him, and he definitely valued her friendship. He would at least be nice about it if he preferred "spires" to "caverns" or didn't wish to marry at all, or if her half-refugee bloodline made her an unsuitable prospect. Her first romance had ended because of that. She had felt like her guts turned to ice the moment she understood that the dwarf she had built no few hopes and plans around considered her brave, steadfast, clever mother to be _lesser_ , because Sefa had no kin besides her husband's kin and her ancestors' bones lay many weeks of travel to the east. 

Bofur set a teacup on the table in front of her, drawing her out of her reverie. She looked up, murmuring an automatic “thank you,” and met his concerned look. 

“Is everything alright? It seemed like you were miles away.”

She picked up her teacup and took a small sip of the almost-too-hot brew. The teacup was local Ered Luin pottery, handle-less, with an elegantly simple curve from the bottom to the sides and a woven pattern painted on in red and brown glaze. The shape and weight of it, and the smell and taste of the tea Bombur preferred, had become familiar in the months that she had shared these day-off afternoon breakfasts with him. 

“Whenever you talk about your family's future dwarrowlings, you talk about brother-sons, and brother-daughters. Have you ever thought they might be your own sons or daughters?” 

Bombur raised his eyebrows in surprise at the abrupt question. He sat down across from her and fidgeted with his teacup a little. “I think Bofur is far more likely to impress a dwarrowdam than me. He's much better at... people.” 

Halla stood up and put her hands on the table, leaning over to bring her face closer to him.

“Bombur,” she used the low, commanding tone that worked so well on dogs and younger brothers, “I'm plenty impressed with you. I've been making time especially to be around you _without_ your brother. I've made a point of coming by when I'd be able to see you cook in your own kitchen, because I enjoy seeing you practice your craft. And I've been waiting for months for you to give me some idea of what you thought about it.” 

His eyes were wide and his lips parted in amazement. A faint blush pinked his cheeks under his freckles. “I didn't think you could mean it that way.” He laid his hand over hers on the table. “Why didn't you _ask_ me if I wanted to court?”

She wanted to turn her hand up under his and hold on as hard as she could. She wanted to look away. She kept her palm pressed against the table and her eyes on his face. “I didn't want to ask and hear you say no. I wouldn't have liked hearing that you wanted to devote your life to your work, or weren't interested in women or bearers, and I couldn't have stood to hear you say you didn't want to bother with a half-Ereboran with only half a family.”

Halla noticed a brief flash of something hard in his eyes that might have been anger, but she'd never gotten a good look at his anger before and couldn't be entirely sure. “Anybody who'd turn you down just because your mother is Ereboran is a Mahal-damned fool.”

“Then there are a lot of Mahal-damned fools in these mountains, one of whom I used to care quite a lot about. You're on my mind so much, Bombur, and if you thought that way I...” Her voice failed her and she finished in a whisper. “I just didn't want to know.”

His hand tightened around hers. “I don't,” he said so quietly that his voice was only a faint rumble in his chest. “I don't think that way. I would be honored to court you, and be courted by you, to see if our lives would be richer joined together.”

At that she turned her hand palm-up and laced her fingers with his. She lifted their joined hands to her mouth and kissed his thumb. Her heartbeat quickened with a mixture of elation and apprehension at getting the answer she wanted. Getting what you wanted rarely meant your problems were solved, and there was so much more she would ask for, if she could only find the words. Bombur stood up and gently un-tangled their fingers. His hand lightly brushed her beard and a shiver ran down her back. It had been years since anyone but her family had touched her like that, years since she had allowed anyone but her family to be that close. Bombur stilled and looked at her with concern in his blue eyes. 

“Are you afraid?” 

“Yes,” she whispered. Whatever this ended up being between them, she wouldn't start it with lies.

“I would never hurt you.”

“But that doesn't mean I won't be hurt. And what if I hurt you? I'm not as nice a dwarf on the inside as a lot of people think.” 

She half expected protestations and insistence on her virtues, but all he said was “I know,” in an earnest, reassuring tone.

She drew back a little and looked at him with her brow furrowed in surprise. “You know?”

If the situation were different the expression on her face would be comical, but he certainly wasn't going to laugh at her now. “Yes. You’re a lot like Bofur in that way. If you're worried about something that can't be fixed with tools you keep it to yourself because you have to be the responsible older sibling. And if you want something more complicated than a meal, or an ale, or a story, you don't tell anyone because if you never ask for it you can pretend that not getting it is fine. He covers it up with songs and chatter; you just stomp it down and let everyone think your wants are almost as simple as your dogs'.”

As he spoke the surprise melted off her face and was replaced with something hauntingly vulnerable. He touched her hand again, but didn't close his own around it. “We're all selfish and broken sometimes. Everyone. It's alright.”

She drew in a deep breath. She didn't clasp his hand, but neither did she push him away; she looked at him with an expression of leashed intensity that was very familiar. Bombur knew that she took on this careful stillness when she wanted something but would not allow herself to reach for it. It occurred to him suddenly that it wasn't always the last roll, or another spoonful of sugar, or getting to choose the next tale that she had denied herself, that the reason he was so familiar with this particular subtle tension was because he was often the cause. Her self-denial almost broke his heart, while at the same time the thought of how often she had looked at him like that made his tool twitch. 

If he had known before what that look meant... but there was no changing the past, only shaping the future. “Please, tell me what you want,” he urged. “It would make me happy to be able to give you something you want.”

She closed the small distance between them and stood directly in front of him, pressed up against his belly. “Every time I see the light shining on your hair I want to touch it.” 

“Yes, please.” 

She skimmed her hands up his shoulders and neck before carefully sliding her fingers into his beard and burrowing to his skin. Bombur had been expecting the hesitant touches of early courtship and his breath hitched as he felt the warmth of Halla's fingertips on his cheeks and her forearms pressed against his chest. He cupped his hands around the sides of her head, feeling the soft skin of her ears and the shape of the braids that ran along her scalp and were pinned in coils at the nape of her neck. He pulled her towards him until their foreheads touched. They stood quietly for several moments, feeling the heat of each others bodies and breathing each others breath. 

Bombur smiled widely, and his eyes shone like sapphires. “This isn't what I expected to happen today,” he said, laughing. 

Halla smiled back. “This is much better than I expected...” Her smile turned impish. “I've talked to your mother already, but how long do you think it will take for Bofur and Bifur to notice that something has changed?”

“Not long. I think they have a bet going about us.”

_-_-_-_-_-

When the toymakers returned to the apartment a few hours later Bombur and Halla were sitting innocently side by side, joking about the similarities between training dogs and training assistant cooks. Bifur took in the sight with his inscrutable, wide-eyed gaze, then looked pointedly at Bofur with his hand raised, palm up. Bofur squinted at them with his head tilted in that way of his that made his hat look even more like puppy ears, then deftly flicked a silver piece into Bifur's waiting hand.


End file.
